Zoom and ServiceNow: AI's Impact on Talent Retention

Having the ability to anticipate employee needs is becoming increasingly important for HR leaders – but many are still relying on reactive talent strategies. 

Findings from the 2025 Future of Talent Acquisition report show that, while 46% of organisations consider talent acquisition a top three HR priority, more than half of companies are still depending on reactive hiring strategies and only 5% believe that their talent acquisition function is ‘world-class’.

This reactive approach can bleed into the wider employee experience. Organisations may struggle to anticipate the needs of their employees – leading to missed leadership opportunities, unnoticed burnout and unexpected turnover.

According to Katie Whitehouse, Vice President of HR, EMEA for ServiceNow, many organisations are “struggling to keep pace with how fast the world of work is changing,” as “new roles and desired skill sets are emerging, while other roles are being automated”.

As the integration of AI in the workplace changes the way jobs operate – with research from Boston Consulting Group finding that 50% to 55% of US jobs will be reshaped by AI over the next three years – businesses are finding it more challenging to anticipate emerging workforce needs. 

Using AI to develop a stronger predictive talent intelligence strategy, however, can help HR teams better identify patterns in employee behaviour and make it easier to identify the skills employees need to develop and prepare for potential workforce shifts. 

“AI can provide leaders with real-time insights into workplace dynamics, such as meeting frequency, collaboration patterns, where time is spent and where it’s being lost,” says Louise Newbury-Smith, Head of UK&I at Zoom. “That’s incredibly powerful, especially in large or distributed teams where it’s hard to get a clear picture.”

By developing an AI-enabled talent strategy, HR leaders can more proactively shape a future-ready workforce, offer more tailored support to employees and move beyond a reactive approach to attracting and retaining talent.

Identifying and developing leadership capabilities

According to Katie, one of the biggest blocks preventing employees from progressing is a gap between ambition and visibility – sharing that while employees often want to grow and develop, in many cases they “genuinely don’t know where to start – or how their existing skills connect to the roles that are emerging.”

Technology can help to close that gap, says Katie, with AI-powered platforms able to give employees a “real-time, personalised picture” of where their skills could take them. This can alert employees to opportunities they may not have had the opportunity to learn about otherwise, as well as recommended learning opportunities that are relevant to the individual employee. 

“The result is a shift away from a single career ladder toward something much more fluid: where people can continuously grow, pivot and adapt to the changing world of work, without having to navigate the system alone,” Katie says. 

AI can also help business leaders and HR teams identify high-potential, internal talent, says Louise. 

“What excites me is how AI can surface patterns we’d otherwise miss,” she says. “For instance, who is consistently driving outcomes in meetings, connecting teams or quietly influencing decisions?”

Zoom as a platform is already using AI tools to analyse patterns of collaboration in meetings with its AI Companion, which can measure the amount people are contributing in meetings and track actionable next steps to help assess follow-through.

“I’ve always believed great leadership is about seeing potential before it’s obvious on paper,” Louise says. “AI can help here, if we use it thoughtfully.”

While AI can help identify strong leadership capabilities through tools such as these, Louise warns against overly relying on the technology when making key decisions.

She says: “Potential goes beyond productivity. Some of the most impactful people I’ve worked with aren’t the loudest. They’re the ones building trust, supporting others and stepping up when it matters. 

“AI can highlight behaviours, but leaders still need to interpret them through a human lens. AI should guide you, not decide for you.”

Predicting employee pain points

For Louise, one of the key ways AI can help HR teams is through its ability to identify patterns, which can help teams notice the early signs of burnout. 

“AI excels at identifying patterns in workplace behaviour, such as consistently high meeting hours, little recovery time and constant task switching,” she says. “These insights give leaders an early warning signal to check in.”

Katie agrees. 

“In my experience, people rarely leave a role out of nowhere,” she says. “By the time someone hands in their notice, the signals have usually been there for a while: a stalled development conversation; a role that no longer fits or a sense that they’re not feeling challenged. The problem is that by then, it's often too late.”

To get ahead of this, Katie recommends that HR leaders utilise AI to analyse patterns across skills data, career progression and overall workforce trends. 

AI can then help identify key signals, such as a lack of development, a misalignment between an employee and their role or declining participation – allowing businesses to flag early signs of employee turnover.

“The real value lies in understanding friction,” says Louise. “Are people stuck in too many meetings? Are decisions stalling? Are certain teams overloaded while others have capacity? 

“AI could then flag recurring meeting bottlenecks, suggest optimal collaboration times across teams, redistribute actions or automatically summarise stalled discussions into clear next steps.”

Access to this data allows HR teams to intervene earlier, says Katie, by connecting employees to learning opportunities or internal roles that may match their skill set better – improving employee experience and overall retention.

But this data must be paired with a good leadership team in order to be successful, advises Katie. 

She says: “Importantly, this doesn’t replace strong leadership. The old adage of ‘people don’t leave companies, they leave managers’ rings true. 

“This AI-driven analysis is only useful when it is placed alongside an empathetic manager who uses the insight to build deeper trust and engagement with an employee.”

Building transparent systems

It can often be challenging for organisations to get the balance right when developing models to assess employee behaviour. 

Companies that use AI as a monitoring tool, says Louise, can “lose trust almost instantly”. 

“People feel watched, not supported,” she continues. 

Instead, she recommends that organisations build more transparent systems that can give people more control over their time and reduce overall friction.

According to Louise, the companies doing this well are “bringing AI into trusted platforms with clear governance, so people know how it’s being used and why,” she says. “And crucially, they’re using insights to support wellbeing, such as spotting overload, redistributing work and helping people focus on higher-value tasks.”

Katie agrees, suggesting that, for these systems to work: “Employees and employers both need to understand the skills frameworks, career pathways, and opportunity criteria. 

“For employees, this helps to shape their progression with clear direction to influence their own careers. For employers, this visibility builds trust in the process and allows for the human element of judgment to be brought in alongside any other analysis.”

Louise concludes: “At its best, AI should feel like a helpful colleague in the background, not a manager looking over your shoulder”